September 21 2010 / MV Explorer

In Women in High Courts Joe Bami talked to us about the queen mothers and the proper way to show respect, which is by avoiding eye contact, not using your left hand, and bringing schnapps, so I guess that will be kind of an adventure to deal with, especially considering we don’t even know if the queen  mother will speak English or anything about what we’ll be doing. 

Class in Global Studies today was on education, and it was okay.  The guest speaker started talking about slavery, and then starting talking about “whose fault it was” in which he mentioned that African traders traded people themselves, so we started getting into a huge ragefest that was just starting to boil up in the student body.  If there is anything I hate more it is discussions about whose fault racism and slavery is , because without a mediator that knows what they’re doing it just gets out of control fast, which was what was happening.  Not a fan. 

I honestly didn’t do too much today.  I caught up on a little bit of Global Studies work is all, and took a nap to prep for Ghana, haha.  I really didn’t get too social until dinnertime, where I sat with Martha and Julie.  Martha, Julie and I hung out talking in Martha’s room until it was time for logistical pre-port, in which they taught us how to use a squat toilet, and to which I said guys, why didn’t we get this in Morocco.  :O  Squat toilets are no fun.  I will need to buy tissues this time around, for sure.  Some students also got up and talked about how embarrassing some SAS students were with their behavior in port (basically being loud obnoxious drunken Americans), which I appreciated.  I really hate being talked down to, but I mean come on. 

After that we were planning on watching The Jungle Book, but first Jared came over and told me we couldn’t work out today because he had no clean clothes.  I gave him a hard time about it until I said that I didn’t have any clean clothes either, and Steve joined into our conversation in the hall about being grumpy about laundry.  We hung out in Jared’s room for a while and Julie and Lorelei joined us.  Apparently Jared’s roommate said I was a “crazy girl” or something?  Hearing people say that kind of thing about me is really weird, especially when I don’t know them at all.  I had literally talked to him like… once.  Then again, he was hanging out with Julie’s roommate who is kind of a rude monster, so I guess I shouldn’t take it too personally. 

We all went up on deck 7 for a while and I finally had one of their famed cheeseburgers, which was pretty good but the ship has been rocking terribly today so I am regretting it a little bit.  Apparently Jared has published a novel, which I need to get.  After a while we went off to Lorelei’s room and some of us watched the Jungle Book together (I never saw Martha after dinner D:).  There is so much of that movie that I don’t remember that just came back to me eventually.  I love Bagera so much.  And I love how Ballu is “that guy.” 

I’m sorry this is kind of short, I’m just really tired for some reason and am mostly distracted away from this day from Ghana being TOMORROW.